Impact of Consumer Awareness, Knowledge, and Attitudes on Organic Rice Purchasing Behavior in China

ABSTRACT

This study examines how Chinese consumers’ awareness, knowledge, and attitudes influences their purchasing behavior for organic rice. The aim is to determine whether regional differences in these factors and in the resulting behavior exist and thereby, to provide the organic rice industry with sufficient information to expand its market and improve profitability. Respondents answered a total of 1,371 questionnaires, whereby 406, 539, and 426 responses came from inland, coastal, and northern regions, respectively. A binary logit regression is applied to analyze the survey data and predict purchasing behavior at the national and regional levels. While the results indicate that consumer awareness, product certification, and product availability factors have a positive impact on the likelihood of purchasing organic rice, the price has a negative relationship with organic rice consumption. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that northern consumers are more likely to buy organic rice than those in inland and coastal regions. In particular, awareness and knowledge factors have a greater influence on purchasing behavior in northern regions. These findings suggest that enhancing consumer awareness of organic rice and providing more purchasing channels could contribute to increasing organic rice consumption.

KEYWORDS:

• Organic rice
• purchase behavior
• awareness
• knowledge
• attitudes

Notes

¹ The central parity rate of USD against yuan is 1: 6.63 (November 2017).

² The female to male ratio of the target population was 1:1 and the age was limited to 25 years and above. This was done because age and income are the important criteria for organic rice consumption.

³ One-time purchasers are particularly strongly affected by contingency factors, and hence, this data is easily influenced by various uncertain factors. However, considering data subjects who purchased organic rice more than once could reduce selection bias. For this reason, both the binary format and the quantitative format of the question were included in the survey.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported under the research subject of “Clarification of Consumer Needs and Choice Behavior of Staple Grain (Food Value Chain Project)” by the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) and Institute of Food and Nutrition Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China (IFND, MARA).